Late Triassic (Early-Middle Carnian) chirotherian tracks from the Val Sabbia Sandstone (Eastern Lombardy, Brescian Prealps, Northern Italy)

A new Late Triassic tetrapod tracksite was discovered north of the Zone village, on the north-eastern side of the Lake Iseo (Southern Alps, Brescia, Lombardy). The tracks are preserved on two distinct bedding planes, belonging to the lower/middle Carnian Val Sabbia Sandstone. The ichnoassemblage is composed of about seventy footprints, arranged in six quadrupedal trackways that exhibit both wide and narrow gauge. All trackways can be attributed to an archosaur trackmaker and at least three of them can be assigned with confidence to the ichnogenus Brachychirotherium Beurlen, 1950. The Zone material represents the first well documented report of this ichnogenus from the Upper Triassic of Northern Italy. The footprints have been analyzed both with traditional methods, and with 3D technologies, such as the terrestrial laser scanner. The ichnoassemblage, although not exceptionally preserved, provides new important data about the stratigraphic distribution of chirotherian tracks in the Triassic of Southern Alps.